


Semantics

by TrueMyth



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Duncan Kane/Veronica Mars established, Episode: s02e05 Blast from the Past, F/M, Halloween, Masks, Mentions of Duncan Kane/Veronica Mars, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Season/Series 02, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:47:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4540335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueMyth/pseuds/TrueMyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The masks come off at Duncan's Halloween party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Semantics

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the established Veronica/Duncan relationship and the teased Logan/Jackie relationship, this is a Veronica/Logan story. If love triangles frustrate you or dubious loyalties upset up, this is your warning. :)

**se•man•tics** (n.)  


* Linguistics. The study or science of meaning in language.  

* Linguistics. The study of relationships between signs and symbols and what they represent. Also called semasiology.

**mask** (n.)  

* A covering worn on the face to conceal one's identity, as: A protective covering for the face or head.  

* A face having a blank, fixed, or enigmatic expression.  

* Something, often a trait, that disguises or conceals: “If ever I saw misery under a mask, it was on her face” (Erskine Childers).

8:40 pm 

The mask was an integral part of the costume. The stretched pleather –the costume rental guy had sworn the fabric would breath – of the headdress was one solid piece, designed to cling to her head like a second skin and cover all but her mouth and lower chin. Her hair seemed to have other ideas, and small beads of perspiration clung to her upper lip before Veronica managed to tame the long locks into lying smooth and flat. She’d nearly vetoed the idea for hair logistics alone, but Duncan had been very excited about their paired costumes and she hadn’t wished to disappoint. Veronica found herself growing wistful for this time last year and the short hair that came with it. She snapped the fastenings under her chin that fixed the mask to the body of the costume and mentally snapped herself out of her nostalgic reverie.

With a final flick of the twin ears at the crown of her head and a dab of powder on her chin, Veronica stood back to survey the finished product. A petite version of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman gazed at her from her bedroom mirror though heavily lined eyes. Veronica held up one gloved hand in a mock claw and ‘rowred’ as the deep red lips of the Catwoman quirked up in sardonic amusement.

Veronica sighed as she allowed her fiercely posed frame to melt into the desk chair in front of her laptop and began to type.

> _Honestly Wallace, I feel a bit like a dominatrix wearing a full body condom. A black condom. I wish you were here to see it – or maybe I don’t since I’m not sure I could save you from choking on your own laughter. I just miss having you around so mu-_

And here she stopped. Her eyes slid closed and her lips pressed together to form a single, thin line of color. Opening her eyes again, she let her masked head fall to one black clad shoulder as the slick surface of her gloved fingers tapped – then held – the backspace key.

> _… black condom._  
>  _Well, I’m off to Duncan’s party. I hope you are having a great Halloween!_

She tagged on her signature and sent the completed missive winging through cyber space. A few quick keystrokes brought up her false desktop of rainbows and unicorns. The sugary explosion of girliness never failed to bring a smile to her face, and she continued wearing it as she kissed her dad goodnight and climbed into the Le Baron. By then, her teeth were pressing into the back of her bottom lip and the mask – just a tad too tight across the bridge of her nose – was starting to itch. The bastard at the costume shop had lied, and now there was nothing to do by grin harder and bear out the pain.

8:45 pm 

Logan had thought he’d be able to go his whole life without worrying about panty lines. Unfortunately, this was just one of the many things he’d been wrong about. He’d learned his lesson and it was this: never let your head nod and your mind wander when listening to Dick Casablancas or you may find yourself agreeing to dress as one third of the Three Musketeers, complete with skin-tight, black woolen leggings. Fuck Gia Goodman for babbling about how much she loved costume dramas in health class. Fuck UPN for showing the movie later that night when Dick had been channel surfing. To be fair, the tights weren’t so much Dick’s fault as they were due to the shopping expertise of their little D’artagnan, Beaver. Logan shouldn’t hold Dick accountable. But now he was going to have to go commando to Duncan’s Halloween masquerade shindig, and he was going to hold anybody accountable that he fucking wanted to.

Logan reached for his mask as he felt his irritation turn to mild amusement. The satin lining of the demi-mask covered his face from nose to forehead, and his dark eyes twinkled with dark joy that Dick’s choice of costume, with the idea that it would make him stand out to the Gia, required three other guys to dress up similarly. It was lucky that his loyalty to his friends went deeper than the simple all-for-oneness that his costume demanded. Otherwise, it might have appealed to his darker nature to use the hair concealing floppy hat and the low lights of the party to seduce the girlfriend of a close friend. It would be so easy, at the stroke of midnight, when Duncan, traditionalist that he was, would cut all lights in the hotel suite and hold them off for half an hour before they came back on and everyone was required to remove the masks and reveal their true identities.

His smile froze like an icy crack on the cold façade that gazed out of the bathroom mirror at him.

It was a good thing he was loyal.

11:59 pm 

> Veronica blinked and her shoulders trembled slightly as the first tear overflowed the eyelid. It colored her bottom left lash until it was the shade of rich clover honey, and just as sticky, before tracing a shining path over black makeup and smooth cheek, and was finally absorbed into the darkness of her mask. Her hands fisted in the coverlet at either side of her as she sat at the edge of the bed in the spare room. At the sound of the door opening, she dashed the tear and spun to face the entrance to the room.
> 
> Before she could make out more than a feathered hat and a white fleur-de-lis on a blue field, she heard the first chime of the midnight bell and the suite was shrouded in darkness. The figure at the door was in silhouette, a human-shaped mask to the faint, cheery twinkles and orange glows of the jack-o-lanterns. A small movement of his hand caused the door to fall shut with muted finality.
> 
> She heard the subtle swish of wool tabard over tight-covered thighs as he moved closer to her, and she, in turn, maneuvered carefully through the inky black to meet him at the foot of the bed. He drew a deep breath, a prelude to words that she did not wish to hear, and her hands rose hurriedly to his wide chest. At the touch, his breath seemed to catch, the words sticking in his throat, and her mouth poured out words to cover the gap.
> 
> “I’m sorry.”
> 
> Her palms pressed into him and then followed her fingers as they climbed upwards, leather gloves gliding over the rough woven wool. She brushed the muscles of his throat and growled in frustration at the masked sensations. She tore at her gloves and let them fall to the floor before she returned her hands to explore the strong column of his neck. She released a puff of air at the feeling of his skin under her touch with no fabric to obscure the texture. His pulse throbbed and she reveled as it picked up speed when she stepped closer. His throat vibrated and he began to speak her name. The word was husky and filled with pain when it flew past her finger tips. She closed his lips with the touch of her hand.
> 
> “No, please. Let’s not talk. We’ve said so many things. No words now, please.” She was begging and the desperation echoing through her own voice made the tears pool in her eyes again. She could think of only one way to halt their fall and she pulled down his head to meet hers.
> 
> Their lips met and they left the world of words behind. They communicated now with sighs and moans, with pressures and glancing caresses. His hat fell to the floor as she claimed his tousled hair with the fan of her right hand. He molded the graceful curves of her body and pulled her tightly to him so that his heat crept deep, past leather catsuit, skin and bone, and settled into her heart.
> 
> She was falling sideways but the bed was there to catch her. It was soft at her back and he was hard on her front and it was at once so familiar for all the wrong reasons and so different for all the right. Pain and happiness warred within her and she expressed them with moans of heartbreaking contentment and longing as she arched into his heat with her torso and thighs. Pressing into him, she smirked at the irony that she was both holding him away so he would not fall completely into her and yet allowing herself to be as close to him as the physical barrier of their costumes would allow.
> 
> The rasp of a zipper sliding down cut through panted breathing that filled the dark room and she twisted her shoulder to help him peel the catsuit from her body. She had sweated so much this night that the vinyl seemed to stick to her skin for a second before making way for the cool night air. It made a quiet sucking noise as he peeled it slowly off her damp skin. The fabric of her bra was somewhat different, but soon that too was gone and was replaced with the warmth of his hand. Thank god his costume required no gloves, because she never wanted to miss the delicious friction of the pads of his large hands on the smooth skin of her breasts. He squeezed gently and his touch was nearly reverent as both hands caressed her and his mouth conveyed his delight, his worry, his love in nips and licks and hot brushes of warm, cider-scented air.
> 
> She was responding to him instinctively, answering his wordless questions with the perfect pressure of hand or leg and she felt her mind slipping away as she opened up to him. This was what she had wanted, but now she was beginning to fear that she was giving too much. He had a way of made her so vulnerable, so exposed, and she didn’t even understand where they were going some of the time when he took control. He took a nipple between his thumb and forefinger and pinched slightly; her hips rose from the bed and into his with as much thought as the sea tide when pulled by the moon. And so, though she was loathed to lose his warmth and the comfort it brought, she once again gave voice to a word, knowing how it would surely turn the warm night icy cold and shatter it into a million pieces…
> 
> Her voice cracked as she sighed into his mask covered ear, “Oh, Duncan…”

**i•den•ti•ty** (n.)  

* The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known.  

* The quality or condition of being the same as something else.  

* The distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; individuality.

9:05 pm 

Before she started moving, Logan was thoroughly enjoying her costume. While so many of the girls here had gone with the obvious sexiness of the French maid costume with the skirt cut just below the crotch or the mermaid with the painted on clam shells, he felt a true appreciation for this figure in classic black, who stood sweeping the room with a slanted gaze. Well, she was as classic as pleather can be. His eyes traced the shallow curve of her hip and he felt his hand begin to cup the air beside him in an answering angle. He licked the spiced cider from his lips as his eyes found her full and pouting mouth; he was already setting down his cup and beginning to stand when she fixed on someone across the room and began to move, not with a cat-like slink, but with purpose and bounce. He let his head fall back against Duncan’s couch with a groan as he watched Veronica Mars navigate the crowded room.

He grabbed his flask back from Dick’s hand and spiked his cider to near toxic degree. Veronica’s back was to him now and he tried to cross his eyes rather than look at the way her costume molded to her ass. When he saw her stop in front of Duncan, arms akimbo and her hips still achingly in focus, he settled for downing his drink and retreating to the corner of the room with the goals of finding more drink and a maid – French or fishy, he didn’t care - to call his own.

9:08 pm 

Veronica shut her eyes and shook her head, but the world is not an etch-a-sketch and, when she looked again, Duncan was still wearing black tights and a blue tabard and a sword, and not the black rubber suit and utility belt she’d been expecting.

“What’s this? Did I miss something? Or are you really not clear on who Batman is?”

A light pink rose in Duncan’s cheeks as he shrugged at Veronica. “I’m sorry, I meant to tell you, but it was a last minute thing. Dick heard that Gia really liked this movie or something and the guys thought it would be fun…” He trailed off as he gestured towards another Musketeer chatting with a mermaid clad Gia on the couch. “Please don’t be mad?” His eyes were wide as he smiled down at Veronica.

Veronica closed her eyes again and suppressed her irritation. It was a stupid thing to argue about, so she pushed her nameless worries aside and smiled back at her Musketeer.

“It’s fine,” she breezed, “I was just looking forward the fake nipples on your chest piece.” She winked up at him and placed her hands on his front in time to feel the ripples of his mild laughter.

“Well, the bedrooms are off limits, so if you’d like to -” He broke off when the sound of a whip crack from across the room distracted them from their embrace.

Veronica was momentarily dumbstruck by what she saw. It could be no one else but Jackie dressed up as Hallie Berry’s Catwoman, all leather straps and exposed skin. As they watched – as everyone at the party watched after that cracking whip – Jackie wrapped her whip around the back of the third Musketeer and pulled him towards her as she backed against the bar.

Veronica broke from Duncan’s arms and was drawn like a lodestone towards the scene, even as the other partygoers lost interest in one more anonymous couple making out. Duncan followed behind her, but she didn’t care. She knew who the third Musketeer had to be, but she didn’t care. She focused on Jackie, laughing, kissing, having a grand old time while Wallace was thousands of miles away and not returning Veronica’s calls or e-mails. Jackie’s kohl-lined eyes met Veronica’s over Logan’s shoulder and she smiled and dropped the whip. Logan turned and Veronica found she couldn’t face the two of them again, not so soon after the Homecoming dance. She found another target for her anger standing besides her and she railed at Duncan.

“How could you invite her? You know -”

And then she realized that all eyes were on her again and Duncan was looking like he didn’t, in fact, ‘know.’ So she threw up her hands and stalked away, finally moving like the cat she pretended to be as she growled at Ashley to get out of her way and she disappeared into the main bathroom. The last think she heard before the door slammed shut behind her was Logan’s voice.

“Shoot, and here I was, expecting a _real_ cat fight.”

12:04 am 

> Logan stiffened, his mouth hovering over the curve of her shoulder bone, his fingers pausing for the fraction of a second over her petite breasts as her muttered word cleft him to the core. He began to pull away.
> 
> But Logan had always had excellent night vision, and Veronica’s ruby red lips, now somewhat smudged, were an excellent contrast to her pale skin, even in the gloom of this room. And so he saw the downward slant of her lips. It was almost a grimace. He remembered that they had been standing when they first kissed and that he’d always had several inches over Duncan. She knew. She knew who he was the same way that he’d known her the minute she began to move from that doorway. Even though they’d never gone further than second base, they knew each other on a physical level that most lovers only dreamed of. For some reason, she was lying. To herself? To him? Both? It didn’t matter. He would make her speak the truth to both of them.
> 
> Her surprised intake of breath when his mouth found her breast brought a smile to his face. She reached for his shoulders, probably to push him off, and he pushed hard between her legs with one thigh. Her hands clung to his shoulders and pulled him closer to her and he smiled again.
> 
> His hands framed the cage of her ribs and began to slide down her torso. They didn’t stop for the catsuit, but, instead, carried it with them down the length of her body. When his thumbs passed her belly button, his mouth moved to the valley between her breasts. He tasted her salty sweetness each time he licked and kissed and he began to realize that his choice of punishment for Veronica was just as torturous for him.
> 
> She squirmed as the black polyester stretched and cleared her hips. Lifting legs and pelvis, she assisted him as he freed her from her costume. She tried to hold him to her as he left her on the bed. He unzipped her boots and tossed them over his shoulder. One met resistances with one of the lamps in the room but he ignored the crash and tugged the pleather skin off her legs. He looked down at the beautiful white body lying on black sheets and tugged his tabard over his head. The mask came off with it and he paused before he let the combined wad of fabric fall from his face. He looked down at her, unmasked, and saw that she had her eyes closed. Before or after he’d revealed himself?
> 
> It wouldn’t matter.
> 
> Logan knelt at the edge of the bed and placed his hands on her upper thighs. Again, she understood his direction with no words and she moved down the bed, the muscles of her thighs bunching and flexing under his hands so that his palms began to sweat. She was only wearing a small black thong now. He lifted his right hand and let the pads of one finger fall where the strap met her upper hipbone. She shuddered and he squeezed her thigh with his left hand and swept across her flesh with his thumb. Slowly, he traced the line of her underwear. His left hand joined in and, together, they spanned the narrow strap on either side. With great deliberation, Logan curled his fingers under the band at her hips and he watched her breasts rise and fall with each shuddering breath has he drew them down her legs.
> 
> Her eyes were still determinedly closed behind her mask, but Logan watched them as his fingers danced over her lower belly. He looked down at her naked body, spread out before him and wondered that she was going this far just to prove a point. But then, this was Veronica Mars, so maybe it wasn’t that much of a wonder after all.
> 
> Logan began to kiss his way up her thigh and her legs spread wider, just as they should. His fingers settled between them and she began to moan. His lips joined his fingers and she lost the ability to moan at all. Her breath was staccato and she was gripping at the comforter at either side as she held her body still. Each time he spared a glance up the length of her, her eyes were still closed, though now she was squinting as if she needed to work to keep them from flying open.
> 
> He parted her with his fingers and ventured inside while his tongue glided and twirled above them. Her head began to roll from side to side. She was getting closer. Logan’s full concentration was focused on Veronica and her arousal. He strained his eyes to watch the flush that heated her pale skin. He noted each touch and exactly how her body responded. He cracked her code and moved her to the brink. And he stopped.
> 
> She whimpered.
> 
> “Veronica.”
> 
> She flinched at his voice but shook her head.
> 
> He stroked her sensitive nub just once and saw there were tears leaking from the corner of her eyes.
> 
> “Say my name.”
> 
> “No,” she whispered.
> 
> “Open your eyes.”
> 
> Veronica rolled her head to the side and refused.
> 
> Logan continued to watch her as he pulled his fingers from her warmth. And then he plunged deeply in and pressed up and at the same time, with his thumb, he pressed down and her eyes flew open as she cried out her pleasure into the dark room and stared at his face with no surprise.
> 
> “Logan.”
> 
> He closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest.

**nor•mal** (n.)  

* The usual or expected state, form, amount, or degree.  

* Correspondence to a norm.  

* Mathematics: A perpendicular, especially a perpendicular to a line tangent to a plane curve or to a plane tangent to a space curve.

11:38 pm 

Veronica cut through the crowd and grabbed Duncan by the arm. She pulled him away from Dick with a brief nod to Gia and dragged him into his bedroom. Some of her classmates tittered and some just shrugged. Before she closed the door, she surveyed the room once more and realized that Logan was missing and so was Jackie. She ignored the pang somewhere near her spleen and closed Duncan’s double doors.

Duncan was standing in the middle of the room looking at her with confusion. She leaned against the door and struggled to maintain her rage. What was it about Duncan’s confused and mildly amused look that took the wind from her sails? She pressed on.

“Why did you invite Jackie?”

“You’re still upset about that?” He shrugged as her frown deepened and held up a placating hand. “Okay, okay. Um… I invited her because her father is a sports celebrity, because I ran into her in the quad when I was passing out flyers, and because Logan asked me to.” Duncan dropped to sit on the bed as if the issue was now resolved.

Veronica pushed off the door and marched to confront him.

“And the fact that she caused my humiliation in front of half the student body? The fact that she was sucking face with Logan at the dance when Wallace really could have used some- a girlfriend? Duncan, you know how I feel about her, why didn’t you give me some kind of advanced warning at least?” She turned from him and her shoulders drooped. Duncan stood up behind her and began to rub her shoulders.

“I’m sorry. You’re right that I should have told you. You’ve had enough stress with this theory of yours about the crash -”

“Theory?” She pushed his hands from her and wheeled to face him. “What do you mean, ‘theory’? I told you the facts.”

Duncan was quite as her eyes surveyed his face.

“You don’t believe it.”

Now it was Veronica’s turn to sit on the bed.

“Curly Moran washes up dead with my name written on his hand. He has all the know-how you’d need to send a bus off a cliff and is old pals with Aaron Echolls. And you don’t believe it?”

Duncan looked uncomfortable but he sighed deeply as he sank to his knees in front of her and spoke earnestly.

“Veronica, I believe that you believe it.”

“Oh my god.”

Veronica pushed past him and stumbled to the door. There she turned and faced her normal boyfriend.

“I don’t want to see you again.”

She brushed the doors aside and tried to focus on the path out of the hotel suite and not on Duncan’s words and earnest face or Logan and Jackie’s pawing embrace or the fact that the only thing waiting for her at home was a father she couldn’t talk to and an impersonal laptop that refused to answer back. At the last minute, she veered from course as she saw Jackie giggling with Ashley against the hallway wall, and she entered the spare bed room.

11:50 pm 

Logan listened through the crack in the bathroom door to the door closing in Veronica’s wake. His mind was still working to process what he had heard. Duncan’s insensitivity – even he’d known she hated Jackie, hell that’s why he’d made sure she was invited – and the fact that Veronica had apparently just broken up with him, these took a back seat to the idea that Veronica had been the target of the school bus crash.

She’d asked him about Curly Moran. Someone had telephoned Weevil from his _Life’s Short_ party and connected Curly to the bus crash. Logan had thought this was just more of Veronica trying to lay the blame on him for anything and everything. But, what if there was more to it? This Moran guy was connected to his father through movie stunts. Was Veronica really in danger?

He didn’t stop to think as he pushed open the bathroom door and found Duncan sitting on his bed.

“What was that all about, man?”

Duncan jumped up, but calmed down when he saw who it was. He sighed and paced to the window of his room.

“Oh you know, Veronica. She has this crazy theory that she was the target of the bus crash. But really, who’s sick enough to take out eight people – more, even, if the 09ers hadn’t taken that limo – just to kill one?”

A ready answer leaped to Logan’s mind and he tasted something bitter in the back of his throat.

“But don’t worry man, she’ll calm down. She always does. She just needs some time alone.”

Duncan opened the door back to the party and looked over his shoulder.

“You coming?”

Logan followed him out, but he felt like he was suddenly underwater. The colors and faces blurred, obscured by his rapidly blinking eyes. The beat of the music melded with the pounding of his own blood in his ears to match the distant boom of the surf. The air seemed to press in around him and he grew dizzy.

“Dude man, I think it’s time we cut you off, huh?”

He held onto Dick’s voice like a life line and a face swam into focus in front of him. He grabbed the bare arms of Gia the mermaid and demanded, “Where’s Veronica?”

He followed her answering glance to the door of the spare bedroom and he swam through the noise and color towards that large black rectangle.

12:13 am 

> Veronica watched through wide open eyes as the shape at the end of the bed unfolded and stood up straight. Her eyes were better adjusted now and she could make out the firm line of his clenched jaw as he bent again to pick up his tabard and began to raise it to his head. She snatched it from him and looked up at him with surprise.
> 
> “What are you doing?”
> 
> “What does it look like?” He tugged at the tabard but she held on, and so he squinted at the floor and plucked his hat up. “My work here is done. You don’t need me for anything else and want me for less than that.”
> 
> “Wait!”
> 
> Her voice arrested him half way to the door but he didn’t turn around.
> 
> “Logan. I’m sorry.”
> 
> “Oh. I see. For what exactly?”
> 
> Veronica slid from the bed. She dropped the tabard on the floor. And she reached up to the side of her neck. Three small snaps echoed in the room and Logan turned to see as she removed her mask and let it drop as well. She shook her head and let her hair cascade down to her shoulders.
> 
> “This is what it’s like when I let myself be with you.”
> 
> “Um, I _wish_ ,” Logan leered.
> 
> “Damn it, listen to me. You make me feel naked. Exposed. I’m not in control with you around and I can’t - I can’t lead a normal life and be with you because you constantly stir things up.”
> 
> “And your life is so fucking normal now? Dead guys with your name on them? Yeah, that’s practically the Waltons.”
> 
> The starch left Veronica’s spine and she gapped at Logan. “How did you -?”
> 
> “I overheard you and Duncan. God, Veronica, are you sure?” He took one step closer to her, and then another.
> 
> Veronica closed her eyes and traded the gloom of the room for the darkness of her own thoughts. Suddenly, she felt arms encircling her and she was no longer alone in the twilight. His heat always amazed her and she leaned into it again as her arms raised to enclose the strength of his back. The soft lawn of his undershirt was thin across his muscles and she could feel as they slid against each other while he stroked her back, her hair. She was reminded of her lack of clothing as her nipples brushed the front of his shirt and, at the same time, his hand pet down her back to fall on the upper curve of her ass. She felt him remember her state at the same time and they broke apart and laughed at each other. His face was the only thing she could see in the dimness of the bedroom.
> 
> And now they were kissing again. He ran both hands down to cup her bottom and stepped forward. As naturally as breathing she jumped slightly and trusted him to support her weight as she wrapped her legs around his hips. He carried her to the bed while she tugged at his shirt. She fell at the bed and tried to help him with the ties of his leggings. He stumbled as he removed the first of his feet from the clinging fabric and she felt a giggle bubbling forth.
> 
> “Don’t even say it,” he commanded.
> 
> “You are just so lucky you can’t see my face right now.”
> 
> With a growl he tossed the offending garment across the room and tackled her on the bed. He smothered her giggles with kisses and tickled her ribs until she cried out for mercy. And he then began to work such sweet mercy with his lips and tongue and hands that she barely noticed when he rolled them around and she found herself on top of him, with her thighs straddling his abs and his erection riding high behind her back.
> 
> Veronica placed her hands on his chest and a question began to form on her lips.
> 
> “You don’t like being out of control, right? Well… here you go. I’m at your disposal, Ms. Mars. It is time for you to have your wicked way with me.”
> 
> “I know you think that smirk is endearing, but –,” she tilted her head to one side and rose to her knees, “- it’s really going to get you in trouble one of these days.”
> 
> “Well, since we know you live to get me out of tr-” The rest of his words lodged themselves in the back of his throat as she pushed herself down and around his full length with no warning. She leaned forward and met his mouth, devouring it as she rocked slowly on up and down his length. Her senses focused on that one spot and she realize she was tightening her inner muscles, hugging him from the inside on each upward stroke. He groaned each time it happened and she smiled down at him with great pride at her new invention.
> 
> “What was that you were saying?”
> 
> “I believe it was – oh fuck – it was: why the hell – oh god yes – why would you want to try and be normal, when you you’re already fucking extraordinary?”
> 
> While she was distracted by his words, he reached between them and began to take a more active role in their play. A slight pressure and she fell from her perpendicular position and collapsed against his chest. His fingers, still in contact, continued their assault as their hips moved in unison. She struggled to hold onto the control but she fought not only the vast expertise of Logan but also her own yearnings and in the end, she felt the waves of pleasure surround her, bathe her, envelop her. And it was not normal.
> 
> It was extraordinary.

**love** (n.)  

* A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.  

* A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.  

* A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.  

* Sports. A zero score in tennis.

11:57 pm 

Logan had never stopped loving Veronica. He had experience in loving people who betrayed him and in hating people he loved.

He was stopped in his rush to the door by Jackie. She touched his arm, brushed her body against him. She forced him to look away from the door and look at her. But she must not have liked what she saw. She stumbled back to her friend and Logan continued towards the door.

11:58 pm 

Veronica had loved Duncan once, but it had been a different definition of the word than the one she had always quoted to herself. She didn’t love him for who he was. She loved him for who she thought she was when she was with him. And now, after he had stared at her, serious and belittling and caring and cruel with his false understandings, she knew that she didn’t like who she was when she was with him.

She didn’t love Duncan.

She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to imagine a world where she could ever believe she loved him again and she felt a tear threaten to break free from her eye.

12:29 am 

> They lay together in the quiet, dark room as the sweat from their lovemaking dried in the conditioned air. Logan was the first to speak.
> 
> “We’ll find out what was behind the bus crash, Veronica. We’ll make sure that you’re safe and that nobody else suffers because of my father.”
> 
> His conviction hung for a minute in the air and she savored its sweetness. He may never be normal, but he knew who she was. She didn’t need any of her masks when she was with him, and she was beginning to understand how freeing that actually was.
> 
> Her words, though a surprise to them both, left her lips as naturally as the breath that helped to form them.
> 
> “I love you, Logan Echolls.”
> 
> And then the lights flickered to life around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for loveathons (LiveJournal) Masquerade Challenge. Speed beta'd by the rockin' mutinousmuse and the rollin' disdainfullady who, unlike the internet and business computer connection at the Burbank Airport Hilton (long story), totally do not suck. All mistakes are mine and I love to correct them so please let me know if you spot something. Thanks also to Dictionary.com.


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